Contemporary Art from Portugal features works by six artists that reflect the range and vitality of contemporary art in Portugal. The exhibition is part of the Month of Portugal, a nationwide initiative developed by the Embassy of Portugal to celebrate the culture and heritage of the country in June. The exhibition coincides with a planned state visit by Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

Featured works include Helena Almeida’s Desenho Habitado (Inhabited Drawing )—a 1977 photographic series that encapsulates the artist’s ability to walk the line between photography, illustration, and performance—as well as a selection of works spanning multiple decades and mediums by the late Álvaro Lapa, who is considered to be the father of contemporary art in Portugal. Visitors will also discover a variety of paintings, photographs, and works on paper by Fernando Calhau, Ruy Leitão, José Luís Neto, and Jorge Queiroz.

The exhibition has been organized in collaboration with the Embassy of Portugal and the Fundação Luso-Americana (Luso-American Development Foundation), a private foundation created in 1986 with the mission of strengthening cultural and economic ties between Portugal and the United States.

 

From myth and legend to warfare, sport, and transportation, the horse played an integral role in ancient Greek culture. Wealthy Greeks belonged to the social class of knights and hunted to develop skills for fighting in the cavalry. Horses were among the earliest subjects explored by Greek artists and remained the most commonly depicted animal in the Archaic and Classical Periods. Artists and writers celebrated horses as symbols of wealth, power, and prestige but also as cherished companions of humans, heroes, and gods.

 

The Horse in Ancient Greek Art presents imagery of mythical horses like the winged Pegasos, who becomes a constellation, as well as horse-hybrids like centaurs and satyrs, creatures that are part human and part horse. Many artists depict chariots, sometimes rushing into battle and sometimes in thrilling races, while others focus on horse races, carefully indicating the goads, bridles, reins, and bits. These images as well as scenes of grooming and feeding well-bred steeds reveal striking parallels between ancient and modern horse care and horsemanship.

The Horse in Ancient Greek Art features Greek vases, sculpture, and coins from the 8th through the 4th centuries BC drawn from private collections, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Tampa Museum of Art, and other museum collections. The exhibition and accompanying publication explore the significance of the horse in ancient Greek culture, and imagery of the horse in ancient myth, war, sport, and competition. From some of the earliest examples of the horse in Greek art, to stunning examples of black and red-figure vases, the objects on view illustrate ancient equestrian life.

The Horse in Ancient Greek Art is co-curated by Dr. Peter J. Schertz, VMFA Jack and Mary Ann Frable Curator of Ancient Art and Nicole Stribling, Curator of Permanent Collections, National Sporting Library & Museum. The exhibition is organized by the National Sporting Library & Museum and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

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Sponsored by

Dr. and Mrs. William J. Frable

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Lilli and William Beyer
The Manuel and Carol Loupassi Foundation

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Michael and Ann Beall
Mr. and Mrs. Alan I. Kirshner
Climis and Carol Lascaris
Patricia R. St. Clair

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Ongoing support for VMFA’s exhibition program is provided by the following endowments: the Dr. Donald S. and Beejay Brown Endowment, the Council Exhibition Fund, the Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Exhibition Endowment, the Fabergé Ball Endowment, and the Julia Louise Reynolds Fund.

In the second volume of The Black Photographers Annual, editor and publisher Joe Crawford included an interview with P. H. Polk (1898–1984), the official photographer at Tuskegee University for nearly 50 years. Accompanied by a portfolio of Polk’s photographs, the entry began with this quote: “A number of students at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama told The Black Photographers Annual that looking at the works of P. H. Polk was like a study in Black history.” It was Chester Higgins, a student at Tuskegee, who introduced Polk’s work to the Annual.

 

This exhibition pairs Polk’s photographs with a selection of the early work of Higgins, who went on to greater recognition as staff photographer for the New York Times. Their images illustrate the Annual’s commitment to publish the works of contemporary photographers while simultaneously recovering and preserving the work of previous generations.

Curated by Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Chester Higgins and P. H. Polk, is the second in a series of rotations exploring the four volumes of the Black Photographers Annual (1973–80).

This exhibition is the second of four rotations that explore each of the four volumes of The Black Photographers Annual, which ended in 1980.

 

Explore the Black Photographers Annual

First discovered in 1974 by farmers in China,  an underground army of nearly 8,000 life-size terracotta figures is known as one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century. Discovered one mile east of the known burial site of the First Emperor of China (r. 221–210 BC), or Qin Shihuang, the terracotta army was created to accompany the emperor to the afterlife. This exhibition features ten majestic terracotta figures, including a cavalry horse, among 130 works that tell the story of China’s birth and one man’s lasting imprint on a nation.

The exhibition also features arms and armor, horse and chariot fittings, ritual bronze vessels, works in gold and silver, jade ornaments, precious jewelry, and ceramics. Excavated from the First Emperor’s mausoleum complex, as well as aristocratic and nomadic tombs, the objects date from the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770–256 BC) through the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) and represent the complex history, myths, and burial customs of ancient China. They also explore the First Emperor’s profound influence on Chinese history.

 

Gathered from fourteen museums and archaeological institutes across Shaanxi Province, China, the works provide insights into Qin history, the creation of a unified China, the First Emperor’s rise to power, and his quest for immortality. More than 40 objects in the exhibition have never before been on view in the United States.  Terracotta Army is the first exhibition the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has presented in its 80-year history that is devoted to the art and archaeology of ancient China.

Organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Cincinnati Art Museum, in partnership with Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, Shaanxi History Museum (Shaanxi Cultural Heritage Promotion Center), and Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum of the People’s Republic of China. The exhibition is curated by Li Jian, VMFA E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of East Asian Art, and Hou-mei Sung, Cincinnati Art Museum Curator of Asian Art.

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Explore Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum Site

 

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Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China is presented by:

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The Julia Louise Reynolds Fund

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The Anne Carter and Walter R. Robins, Jr. Foundation

Virginia H. Spratley Charitable Fund II

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Dr. Donald S. and Beejay Brown Endowment

The Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia

Mrs. Frances Massey Dulaney

Jeanann Gray Dunlap Foundation

Dr. and Mrs. Steven E. Epstein

Frank Qiu and Ting Xu of Evergreen Enterprises

Norfolk Southern Corporation

Richard S. Reynolds Foundation

Stauer

Mr. and Mrs. Fred T. Tattersall

The Charles G. Thalhimer Fund

Ellen Bayard Weedon Foundation

YHB | CPAs & Consultants

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Ongoing support for VMFA’s exhibition program is provided by the following endowments: the Dr. Donald S. and Beejay Brown Endowment, the Council Exhibition Fund, the Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Exhibition Endowment, the Fabergé Ball Endowment, and the Julia Louise Reynolds Fund.

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The Black Photographer’s Annual

From 2016 to 2019, a series of four rotations will explore four separate volumes of the Black Photographers Annual, which was published between 1973 and 1980. Photographs by P.H. Polk and Chester Higgins are currently on view in Like a Study in Black History: P. H. Polk, Chester Higgins & The Black Photographers Annual, Volume 2. Works by Anthony Barboza, Roy DeCarava, LeRoy Henderson, Beuford Smith, Ming Smith, James VanDerZee, and others are included in other installations. All four volumes have also been digitized and can be found here.

The Black Photographers Annual, Volume 2

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Art 365

Explore African American Art at VMFA.

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Part of VMFA’s Statewide program, VMFA at Capital One: Featuring VMFA Fellowship Winners Mickael Broth, Matthew Grimes, and Aimee Joyaux, which runs November 2017-February 2018 will feature the work of three new VMFA Fellowship recipients. This is the second of the now bi-annual fellowship exhibition rotation hosted by statewide partner Capital One. The exhibition features Richmond-based artist Mickael Broth (’08-09 Fellowship Recipient), Petersburg based artist Aimee Joyaux (’17-18 Fellowship Recipient), and Arlington-based artist Matthew Grimes
(’17-18 Fellowship Recipient).

Mickael Broth won a VMFA Visual Arts Fellowship for his work in drawing in 2008. A Richmond-based artist, muralist, and writer. Broth came to Richmond in 2001 with the intention of painting graffiti as much as possible. His involvement in vandalism was halted abruptly with his arrest in 2004 and subsequent ten-month jail term for his crimes. Since that time, he has gone on to pursue an active (and mostly legal) career in the arts. He has painted murals throughout Richmond and the United States over the past decade as part of public art projects and private commissions. For more information on Mickael Broth, see his website.

Aimee Joyaux won a VMFA Visual Arts Fellowship for her drawings in 2017. Her work is grounded in a
visceral response to current events, be they personal, political, cultural, or imagined. I work in multiple
media. The creative process helps her examine contradiction and bias sometimes through formal
relationships and sometime through literal juxtapositions. By situating a personal experience within a grand narrative through language, iconography, and gestural fields of color, she engages with cultural memory to explore ideas of power and place. For more information on Aimee Joyaux, please visit her website.

Matthew Grimes won a VMFA Visual Arts Fellowship for his mixed-media work in 2017. In 2010-11, he
lived and worked in Bizen, Japan, with current Japanese National Treasure Isezaki Jun, as a short term
apprentice investigating the centuries old methods and techniques of Bizen studio ceramics. After returning to Washington, DC, he later moved to Santiago, Chile, where he began an additional studio and the seed development to his current mixed media collage. For more information on Matthew Grimes’ work, please visit his website.

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Fellowship is proud to partner with statewide partner Capital One on this bi-annual exhibition, the second of its kind. VMFA at Capital One: Featuring VMFA Fellowship Winners Mickael Broth, Matthew Grimes, and Aimee Joyaux runs through February 2018. Come out to Capital One at West Creek to check out Fellowship’s partnership with Capital One!

Click here for more information on VMFA Fellowship’s statewide partnerships.

Exhibit is sponsored by The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
William King Museum of Art
United-Legard Galleries

The noted American contemporary photographer Thomas R. Schiff uses a panoramic camera to create dynamic and startlingly original images of well-known buildings and familiar places: “I always like to go to places people are familiar with and show the perspective from a panoramic camera,” he recently stated. “The camera distorts everything in the picture – straight lines become curved and it throws off your perspective. It challenges your relationship to what is familiar or thought to be understood.”

 

The artist’s passion for photography began in grade school in Cincinnati, Ohio, when he began taking photographs with a Kodak Brownie camera. By the time he studied photography at Ohio University he was using a 35mm camera, but Schiff eventually grew tired of the small format of traditional cameras and in 1994 he purchased a Hulcherama 360-degree panoramic camera that allowed him to create highly detailed photographs of building exteriors and interiors on a monumental scale. The artist also began using a custom-made tripod that allows him to elevate the camera up to 20 feet in the air, thus avoiding the many obstructions that one finds at ground level, such as fire plugs, parked cars, and stop signs, as well as a wide angle lens, which allows him to capture more of the image above and below the horizon line. The resulting full-color panoramic photographs of special spaces, places and structures in Ohio were published in 2003 in Panoramic Ohio, a bicentennial tribute to his home state.

In 2004 Schiff began taking panoramic photographs of Virginia, which like Ohio features exceptional historic buildings and beautiful natural environments. This exhibition presents 40 photographs that Schiff made in the Commonwealth of Virginia between 2004 and 2013, all of which were included in the artist’s 2015 publication Virginia 360°: Photographs by Thomas Schiff. Combining Schiff’s passion for photography and his love of architecture, the works on display in this exhibition provide a fresh, new perspective for these notable Virginia landmarks, thus encouraging the viewer to reevaluate their perceptions of the world.

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Upcoming Dates:
Staunton Augusta Art Museum
Jan 12 – Feb 17, 2018

For decades, Mimi Wilson Dozier was the impassioned ringleader of VMFA’s Friends of Indian Art. Together with former curator Dr. Joseph M. Dye III she introduced a generation of Richmond-area residents to the subcontinent’s enchanting artistic creations. Encouraged by her husbands, Perk and Kemp, Mimi gradually amassed a first-rate collection of Indian miniature paintings.

 

These 24 works, now on view in the museum’s Indian Pavilion Gallery, include superb examples from many of North India’s myriad regional painting schools. They are presented in a loosely thematic arrangement that foregoes art history’s typical chronological and geographic march, instead allowing the viewer to consider images created across periods and places, related to one another by subject matter.

What initially drew this Richmond collector to Indian paintings was their bright colors, flat surfaces, and stylized figures. With time, she became every bit as delighted by these works’ subtleties and sophistications. VMFA’s visitors now have the opportunity to be captivated, by these paintings’ colors, their intricacies, and their transporting charm.

Dr. John Henry Rice, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art

Based on the notion of dialogue, Hear My Voice: Native American Art of the Past and Present explores conversations between Native American artists and their art across centuries, a continent, and 35 indigenous cultures. A total of 56 works illustrate the ways in which Native American art speaks of a shared knowledge and shared history while also being incredibly diverse in subject matter and medium. Organized into three themes, or types of dialogue, the exhibition explores how Native American artists relate to the natural world, their community, and the outside world and how those relationships affect their identity and work.

Hear My Voice: Native American Art of the Past and Present is curated by Dr. Johanna Minich, Assistant Curator of Native American Art. Works in the exhibition are drawn from the museum’s collection as well as loans from other institutions and individuals. Hear My Voice is a statewide exhibition and will travel to the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester and the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke in 2018. The statewide tour is generously sponsored by The Schiller Family.

 

Sponsors

 

The Schiller Family
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Canvas at VMFA

An Anonymous Donor

The twelve works in this exhibition, by Japanese artist Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) belong to a collection of more than six hundred prints donated to VMFA by René and Carolyn Balcer. Created by Hasui between 1924 and 1953, the works displayed here, which depict scenes of mountains and hills across Japan, represent the country’s yet-untouched austerity, serenity, and beauty.

Hasui was trained in both traditional Japanese ink and Western oil painting. He worked primarily as a commercial illustrator until 1918 when, inspired by the works of Ito Shinsui (1898-1972), he began to create his own woodblock prints. Hasui’s first experimental prints were published by Watanabe Shozaburo, initiating a relationship that would last the rest of Hasui’s life.

Watanabe referred to the prints created by Hasui and his contemporaries as shin-hanga, meaning “new prints.” As collaborations involving artist, block carver, printer, and publisher, shin-hanga works emulated ukiyo-e printmaking. However, instead of the flat, stylized planes typical of ukiyo-e, shin-hanga prints, such as the ones seen here, used Western techniques of perspective and volumetric shading.

Exhibit is sponsored by The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
William King Museum

“The Great War” changed the face of the world when it began on July 28, 1914. The story of World War I and the emotions it brought on are told through prints by British and American artists such as Muirhead Bone, Kerr Eby, Childe Hassam, James McBey, and Claude Shepperson. The works depict scenes of combat in France and the Near East, life on the home front in the United States and England, and the war’s aftermath and its commemoration. All of the prints come from the Frank Raysor Collection, a promised gift to the museum. Curated by Dr. Mitchell Merling, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art.

In 1973, a group of African American photographers in New York City published the first volume of The Black Photographers Annual. In a brief forward that succinctly outlined the new publication’s purpose, novelist Toni Morrison wrote: “It was conceived as a commitment to the community of Black artists. . . . There is no higher praise for any project than that it is rare, true, and free. And isn’t that what art is all about? And isn’t that what we are all about?” Emerging from the broader context of the Black Arts Movement, which grew out of the civil rights movement, as well as the more specific context of the collective of African American photographers known as the Kamoinge Workshop (Kamoinge is taken from the Kikuyu language of Kenya and means “to work together”), the Annual featured the work of nearly 50 artists.

This exhibition is the first of four rotations that explore each of the four volumes of The Black Photographers Annual, which ended in 1980. The first installation features 20 photographs by several of the artists whose work appears in the first issue, including Anthony Barboza, Roy DeCarava, Louis Draper, LeRoy Henderson, Beauford Smith, Ming Smith, and Shawn Walker. Curated by Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

 

Explore the Black Photographers Annual

The energetic sights and sounds of the fashion runway come to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts this spring with Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style. Drawn from the archives of the Fondation Pierre Bergé—Yves Saint Laurent and other private collections, this breathtaking exhibition offers an intimate and comprehensive look at the lifetime achievement of Yves Saint Laurent, one of history’s most radical and influential fashion designers. Featuring 100 examples of haute couture and ready-to-wear garments—some never shown publicly before—this exhibition reveals Saint Laurent’s artistic genius, as well as his working process, and the sources of his design inspiration. VMFA is the only East Coast venue for the exhibition, which has been organized by the Seattle Art Museum in partnership with the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent in Paris.

 

In addition to haute couture ensembles and ready-to-wear clothing, Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style also includes accessories, photographs, drawings, films, and video from the Fondation’s vast archive. The exhibition traces the trajectory of Saint Laurent’s style as it developed over the course of his career, beginning in 1953 with the “Paper Doll Couture House” that he created as a teenager, which is being shown for the first time in the United States. Ensembles early in the exhibition focus on his formative years at the House of Dior, including an example of a short evening dress from his successful “Trapeze” collection, which marked his debut as a fashion designer when it was shown in Paris in 1958.

 

The exhibition continues with his groundbreaking designs of the 1960s, which revolutionized the fashion industry. During this decade, Saint Laurent liberated modern women from the constraints of strict gender codes by creating garments, such as the safari jacket, the pantsuit, and the tuxedo, which he borrowed from the male wardrobe. Visitors will also see how Saint Laurent was inspired by the work of other artists, including Piet Mondrian and Tom Wesselmann, as well as ancient Greek vase painting and African art.

Another key element of this presentation is the inclusion of production documents that offer a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse into the creative workings of the Yves Saint Laurent fashion house and the private life of the couturier. Collection boards containing sketches and color swatches from 1962 to 2002 document every Saint Laurent haute couture show, while a room of muslins, the hand-sewn forms ateliers use to create a first draft of couture garments, offer a unique look into the various stages of production and fitting before the final garment was realized. The exhibition concludes in an explosion of color with a procession of eveningwear, including garments in black silk, blue-green chiffon, and white damask, which date from the early 1970s to 2002, when Saint Laurent officially retired with his final runway collection.

Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style is curated by Florence Müller, the Denver Art Museum’s Avenir Foundation Curator of Textile Art and Curator of Fashion, in collaboration with Chiyo Ishikawa, Seattle Art Museum’s Deputy Director of Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture. Barry Shifman, VMFA’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Decorative Arts, 1890 to the present, is the organizing curator for VMFA.

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The list below represents sponsors of Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style as of November 2016. For further information about sponsoring this exhibition or making a gift to the VMFA Exhibition Fund, please contact Jayne Shaw, Director of Development, at 804.340.5529 or jayne.shaw@VMFA.museum.

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Northern Trust Company

The Julia Louise Reynolds Fund
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Teri Craig Miles
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Eda Hofstead Cabaniss

First Tennessee Bank

Julia and Tunnicliff Fox Charitable Trust

Dr. and Mrs. William Jackson Frable

Floyd and Helga Gottwald

McGue Millhiser Family Trust

Norfolk Southern Corporation

Virginia Sargeant Reynolds Foundation

Deborah and Thomas Valentine

The Winebow Group

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Since the 1970s, contemporary Chinese photographer Gong Jianhua has been photographing Shanghai’s longtang neighborhoods. Unique to Shanghai, longtang are an architectural hybrid, started in the late 19th century, in which the traditional Chinese courtyard home is adapted to the urban townhouse format. As the exhibition’s title suggests, longtang were organized into walled urban neighborhoods, each interlaced with a grid of progressively narrower lanes and alleyways. Gong’s photographs, which span the period from the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) to Shanghai’s recent resurgence as a global economic hub, provide vivid access to these semiprivate passages that once dominated Shanghai’s urban landscape. Rather than document this disappearing architectural style, Gong’s work is sensitive to the unique way in which the longtang environment affected its residents’ everyday lives.

The 25 photographs in this exhibition comprise half of a promised gift from Kent and Marcia Minichiello, which was divided between VMFA and the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, University of Richmond Museums. The exhibition is a collaboration between the University or Richmond Museums and VMFA and was curated by Kristopher Kersey, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Richmond.

Artist-jeweler Jean Schlumberger transformed 20th-century fashion with his sculptural designs for vibrant and whimsical jewelry and accessories inspired by nature. From crafting costume jewelry for designer Elsa Schiaparelli in 1930s Paris to heading his own private salon at New York’s Tiffany & Co. beginning in the 1950s, Schlumberger was known for inventive interpretations of animal and botanical subjects and iconic pieces that came to define mid-century chic. His witty designs for objects ranging from cigarette cases and pill boxes to brooches, necklaces, and bracelets were popular with some of the most celebrated women of the day and are among the highlights of the Rachel Lambert Mellon Collection of Jean Schlumberger at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Music: remix of “Jeux d’eau” by Maurice Ravel, performed by Allison Lovejoy

Through this exhibition of over 140 works, VMFA celebrates the generosity of Rachel Lambert Mellon, a noted horticulturalist, philanthropist, and longtime supporter of the museum. With Mrs. Mellon’s extraordinary gift, VMFA now holds the largest and most comprehensive public collection of jewelry and art objects by this renowned French designer. These works of art—many of which are on public display for the first time—collectively reveal the dedication to perfection and beauty, dazzling imagination, and clarity of vision that united the artist and his great patron.

 

Schlumberger also designed powder compacts, candlesticks, centerpieces, and clocks, which combined precious and semiprecious stones with enamel and gold in the manner of the Russian master Carl Fabergé. Over the years, Schlumberger’s elegant designs attracted celebrity clients such as Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn, as well as Jacqueline Kennedy and her close friend Rachel Lambert Mellon, a great patron of the designer and VMFA.

The Rachel Lambert Mellon Collection of Jean Schlumberger is organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Curated by Dr. Mitchell Merling, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the European Art Department, with Kristie Couser, Curatorial Assistant for the Mellon Collection.

Rachel Lambert Mellon (1910–2014) was a dedicated patron of the arts and sciences and a longtime supporter of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She contributed substantially to VMFA’s permanent collection with her donation of jewelry and objects d’art she collected and commissioned from French jewelry designer Jean Schlumberger. Her husband, Paul Mellon, credited her with inspiring his interest in French art, and together they gave a portion of their collections (including nine rare wax sculptures by Edgar Degas) to the museum, to be installed in the 1985 West Wing, which they also helped to fund. VMFA is honored that the French collection contains works of art representing flowers, gardens, and the French countryside, subjects that were highly meaningful to Mrs. Mellon. Through their historic gifts to the museum, Mr. and Mrs. Mellon transformed VMFA into a center for the display, study, and appreciation of the arts, especially of France.

The exhibition is organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and curated by Dr. Mitchell Merling, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the European Art Department, with Kristie Couser, Curatorial Assistant for the Mellon Collections.

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The list below represents sponsors of The Rachel Lambert Mellon Collection of Jean Schlumberger as of November 2016. For further information about sponsoring this exhibition or making a gift to the VMFA Exhibition Fund, please contact Jayne Shaw, Director of Development, at 804.340.5529

Presented By

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Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust

Peachtree House Foundation

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Mrs. Frances Massey Dulaney

Sotheby’s

Mrs. Patricia R. St. Clair

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Image Credits:

1. Flower Pot, Jean Schlumberger, French, 1907 – 1987, 1960, amethyst, emeralds, diamonds, black garnet ore, terracotta and 18-, 20- and 22-karat gold, Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon.

2. Jellyfish (La Méduse) (Brooch), 1967, moonstones, diamonds, sapphires, 18 karat gold, platinum, Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon.

3. Butterflies (Bracelet), 1956, amethyst, sapphires, turquoise, peridots, yellow diamonds, diamonds, colored stones, 18-karat gold, platinum, Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon

4. Rock Crystal Obelisk, Jean Schlumberger, French, 1907 – 1987, 1970-71, rock crystal, 18-karat gold, and enamel, Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon.

5. Dot Losange Bangles, designed 1960, made late 20th century, Paillonné enamel, 18-karat gold, Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon.

6. Jasmine (Breath of Spring) (necklace), Jean Schlumberger, French, 1907 – 1987 (Designer), Tiffany and Company, American, founded 1837 (Manufacturer), 1966, model 1962, 18 karat gold, platinum, colored sapphire and diamond, Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon.

Where do a photographer’s impulse to create a documentary image and aesthetics meet? In the early 20th century, American photographer Lewis Hine (1874–1940) embarked on a decades-long mission to document the abject working conditions of the nation’s child laborers with the hope of provoking change. As a result, he created a catalogue of photographs that not only served as provocative catalysts for American labor reform, but were also striking images in which viewers could clearly see the strength, dignity, and hope of the people depicted.

In addition to photographs by Hine, The Likeness of Labor presents complementary works from the generation of photographers that came after him. Working during the Great Depression, artists such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Margaret Bourke-White, who were influenced by Hine’s interest in American laborers and migrants, sought to portray these individuals in the midst of the nation’s desperate economic conditions. Though most of the photographs feature anonymous subjects, each is a likeness of a man, woman, or child’s persona shaped by hardship.

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Upcoming at Daura Gallery Lynchburg College

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Artists at VMFA

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Artwork a Day

Follow us on social media to discover even more incredible works by African and African American artists during the month of Februrary!

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Video music credits: “Three Musicians” by Romare Dearden “Music Box Rag”, performed by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra